HCM City authorities on Friday discussed the current shortcomings of tax and customs regulations in Viet Nam at a dialogue between the city authority and enterprises.

As many as 400 representatives from 320 enterprises participated in the dialogue organised by the HCM City Investment and Trade Promotion Centre (ITPC) and the HCM City Tax Department.

Most enterprises asked questions related to policies on VAT, enterprise income tax, special consumption tax and import-export tax as well as tax refunds and tax preferences for enterprises and income tax for expats in Viet Nam.

Nguyen Nam Binh, deputy chief of the HCM City Tax Department, said the comments and recommendations of enterprises would help improve the policy-making process, creating a fair and attractive business environment for local and foreign enterprises.

Cao Thi Phi Van, deputy director of ITPC, said the dialogue between the city’s authority and enterprises would be done directly and online.

ITPC would continue to perform its role as head of the executive board of the dialogue system between the city’s authority and enterprises, which was established in 2002 by the city People’s Committee, she said.

Since 2002, ITPC has worked with concerned agencies to organise 174 dialogues, attracting participation of 26,819 enterprises and answering 11,839 questions from company representatives at the meetings.

Prior to the meeting, the organisation board received more than 90 questions from enterprises related to tax-related issues.

Last year, ITPC held 17 dialogues on taxes, customs, labour issues, social insurance, construction, environment, planning, trade, investment and traffic, among others.

Together with the direct dialogues, the online dialogue system continued to be a channel to help resolve problems, in which the business community places its trust.

The members of the dialogue system includes departments, agencies and districts of HCM City and central departments and agencies which answer online questions and deal with obstacles of enterprises in a timely manner.

Last year, all of these authorities answered 540 tax-related questions from enterprises. — VNS